A Carnot heat pump is used to heat a house. The outside temperature is 17 Celsius and the indoor temperature is 47 Celsius. If the heat loss from the house is 100kW, the power required to operate the heat pump is?
Answers
Explanation:
Heat pumps, air conditioners, and refrigerators utilize heat transfer from cold to hot. They are heat engines run backward. We say backward, rather than reverse, because except for Carnot engines, all heat engines, though they can be run backward, cannot truly be reversed. Heat transfer occurs from a cold reservoir Qc and into a hot one. This requires work input W, which is also converted to heat transfer. Thus the heat transfer to the hot reservoir is Qh = Qc + W. (Note that Qh, Qc, and W are positive, with their directions indicated on schematics rather than by sign.) A heat pump’s mission is for heat transfer Qh to occur into a warm environment, such as a home in the winter. The mission of air conditioners and refrigerators is for heat transfer Qc to occur from a cool environment, such as chilling a room or keeping food at lower temperatures than the environment. (Actually, a heat pump can be used both to heat and cool a space. It is essentially an air conditioner and a heating unit all in one. In this section we will concentrate on its heating mode.)
Part a of the figure shows a heat pump, drawn as a circle. Work W, indicated by a bold orange arrow, is put in to to the pump to transfer heat Q sub c, indicated by a bold orange arrow, out of a cold temperature reservoir T sub c, drawn as a blue rectangle, and pumps heat Q sub h, indicated by a larger bold orange arrow, into high temperature reservoir T sub h. Part b of the figure shows a P V diagram for a Carnot cycle. The pressure P is along the Y axis and the volume V is along the X axis. The graph shows a complete cycle A D C B A. The path begins at point A, then it drops sharply down and slightly to the right until point D. This is marked as an adiabatic expansion. Then the curve drops down more gradually, still to the right, from point D to point C. This is marked as an isotherm at temperature T sub c, during which heat Q sub c enters the system. The curve then rises from point C to point B along the direction opposite to that of A D. This is an adiabatic compression. The last part of the curve rises up from point B back to A. This is marked as an isotherm at temperature T sub h, during which heat Q sub h leaves the system. The path D C is lower than path B A. Heat entering and leaving the system is indicated by bold orange arrows, with Q sub h larger than Q sub c.
Figure 2. Heat pumps, air conditioners, and refrigerators are heat engines operated backward. The one shown here is based on a Carnot (reversible) engine. (a) Schematic diagram showing heat transfer from a cold reservoir to a warm reservoir with a heat pump. The directions of W, Qh, and Qc are opposite what they would be in a heat engine. (b) diagram for a Carnot cycle similar to that in Figure 3 but reversed, following path ADCBA. The area inside the loop is negative, meaning there is a net work input. There is heat transfer Qc into the system from a cold reservoir along path DC, and heat transfer Qh out of the system into a hot reservoir along path BA.
Heat Pumps
The great advantage of using a heat pump to keep your home warm, rather than just burning fuel, is that a heat pump supplies Qh = Qc + W. Heat transfer is from the outside air, even at a temperature below freezing, to the indoor space. You only pay for W, and you get an additional heat transfer of Qc from the outside at no cost; in many cases, at least twice as much energy is transferred to the heated space as is used to run the heat pump. When you burn fuel to keep warm, you pay for all of it. The disadvantage is that the work input (required by the second law of thermodynamics) is sometimes more expensive than simply burning fuel, especially if the work is done by electrical energy.
The basic components of a heat pump in its heating mode are shown in Figure 3. A working fluid such as a non-CFC refrigerant is used. In the outdoor coils (the evaporator), heat transfer Qc occurs to the working fluid from the cold outdoor air, turning it into a gas.
The diagram shows a diagram of a heat pump. There are four components connected by pipes. They are a condenser (1), an expansion valve (2), an evaporator (3), and a compressor (4), connected in that order. The evaporator coils are outside; all of the other components are inside. Heat Q sub c is absorbed from the outside air at the evaporator, and heat Q sub h is emitted inside from the condenser.
Figure 3. A simple heat pump has four basic components: (1) condenser, (2) expansion valve, (3) evaporator, and (4) compressor. In the heating mode, heat transfer Qc occurs to the working fluid in the evaporator (3) from the colder outdoor air, turning it into a gas. The electrically driven compressor (4) increases the temperature and pressure of the gas and forces it into the condenser coils (1) inside the heated space.